US government runs budget surplus of US$159.3 billion in April
13/5/2008 16:41
The US federal government ran a budget surplus of US$159.3 billion in
April, down 10.4 percent from the level of the same month of last year, the
Treasury Department reported yesterday.
Even with the surplus in April, the
federal budget deficit in the first seven months of the current fiscal year,
which began on Oct. 1, 2007, totaled US$152.2 billion, nearly double the red ink
of US$80.8 billion during the same period in 2007.
So far this fiscal year,
revenues have increased by 3 percent from a year earlier to US$1.55 trillion,
while outlays have rose at a faster pace of 7.4 percent to US$1.70
trillion.
In its latest budget plan sent to Congress in February, the Bush
administration estimated that the budget deficit for the current fiscal year
would be US$410 billion, close to the all- time high of US$413 billion set in
2004.
But the administration projected that the government could eliminate
the deficit completely and return to a surplus by 2012.
The US federal budget
was in surplus for four years from 1998 through 2001.
Xinhua
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